Back in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when Damon the Gypsy first emerged with his now high in demand first release Song of a Gypsy, major artists often kept their career momentum going by releasing two and three albums a year.
It’s a practice that’s unheard of in 2010—till now, as the popular singer-songwriter gears up to release Gypsy Eyes, the highly anticipated stirring and exotic sequel to Song of a Gypsy and the second album in a planned “Gypsy Trilogy.”
True to his organic artistic nature and old school pop-rock sensibilities, Damon is making Gypsy Eyes available to his fans on both LP and CD; for those who have dual technologies, the LP package also includes the CD. The original version of Gypsy Eyes came out in 1999 and sold respectably, but Damon ultimately was not satisfied with the sonic quality of the recording.
He considers the new re-issue, which features HD separation mastering done by John Vestman of Bernie Grundman Mastering in Los Angeles, a superior product that conveys more of the positive feeling he intended. Vestman is a 30-year veteran engineer who has worked on projects by Sting, George Duke, Hole and Teena Marie, among others.
Earlier this year, Damon released a new version of Song of a Gypsy featuring VHD re-mastering by Vestman; Song of a Gypsy was originally pressed on vinyl in 1969 and sold thousands in its original CD release twenty years later. Damon is currently putting the finishing touches on The Gypsy Finds A Home, the third installment of his Gypsy trilogy that will be released later this year; he will be shooting a video for the song “Dance Little Gypsy” in June.
“While each recording is in many ways a continuation of the vibe of the album before it, they also are reflections of the different places I am at in my life during these distinct eras,” says Damon. “Every decade our outlook changes a bit, and so while Song of a Gypsy finds a young man in some spiritual turmoil questioning life, Gypsy Eyes has more peace about it, is much less stressful and disturbing and shows a new, settled outlook on my life. The Gypsy Finds A Home will be the perfect extension to the story, based on the philosophy about living life to the fullest, having fun and dancing your blues away.
“I’m so excited to present my previous recordings with such great sound quality that only John could have achieved,” he adds. “These are all wonderful representations of my growth as a person and artists over these many years. I’m really proud that my name is on them.”
In lyrical content and feel, Damon’s counts among his favorite songs on the 15-track Gypsy Eyes “The Voice” and “Seems Like I Traveled.” “The Voice” is about addressing the competing voices in our heads and choosing to follow the correct one as we make life choices. “Seems Like I Traveled” is about experiencing the same things over and over and realizing that the way we deal with them makes the difference. No matter the emotional shifts in Damon’s life, his sense of romance always shines through; on Gypsy Eyes, this spirit is represented on the title track (about the longings of one’s life as reflected in the eyes), “Quiet Of The Evening” and “You’re Mine.”
Damon put in the same amount of detail into the packaging as he did into the recording process. The back cover art of Gypsy Eyes (on LP and CD) is the gorgeous classic Van Gogh piece “The Caravans: Gypsy Camp Near Arjes.”
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The 1969 Cult Classic ‘Song Of A Gypsy’—
Of Which Rare Original Copies Of The LP List
For Up To $3,000 On eBay— Are Being Sold On
Re-mastered VHD For The First Time For Only $14
on cdbaby.com During the Month of February
Forty years beyond its initial LP release, and 20 years after selling thousands following its CD release, the 1969 cult classic Song of a Gypsy, by acclaimed singer-songwriter Damon The Gypsy, is now available to longtime fans and to future followers just in time for Valentine’s Day, and through the month of February for a special price of $14 on cdbaby.com.
Damon is introducing this glorious, trippy and romantic album to a new generation with a new ‘VHD’ version re-mastered by John Vestman, a 30-year veteran engineer who has worked on projects by Sting, George Duke, Hole and Teena Marie, among others.
Song of a Gypsy is one of the most sought after vinyls of its time, with “The Goldmine Price Guide to Rare and Collectible Record Albums” listing it at over $3,000.
At its heart, Song of a Gypsy is about Damon’s search for love and an ongoing passion for a mysterious girl named Genie, as in “Poor Poor Genie,” the album’s second track. Song of a Gypsy’s titles all touch on different feelings about this Genie. He asks, “Don’t You Feel Me” and “Did You Ever” think that I would fall in love with you? On Song of a Gypsy’s final track, “The Road Of Life,” he looks back on this extraordinary romance and says, “As each day comes to pass and my body comes to rest, my heart, my mind, my soul goes on living for the best.”
Damon has performed everywhere from his home base in Southern California to Amsterdam, Greece and Spain; he even played 14 cities in 16 days a few years ago. With the VHD release of Song of a Gypsy, he’s looking forward to hitting the road again, and currently working on a third album to complete the “gypsy” trilogy.
]]>A SURE CURE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY BLUES:
TURN ON AND TUNE IN TO ‘SONG OF A GYPSY’,
THE CALIFORNIA BASED SINGER-SONGWRITER’S
1969 CULT CLASSIC—
NOW AVAILABLE IN REMASTERED VHD FOR THE FIRST TIME!
Rare Original Copies Of The LP List For Up To $3,000 On eBay And
Feature Damon’s Modal Sound, Which He Discovered
One Night Jamming With Ravi Shankar And George Harrison In 1967
Last summer, America marked the 40th anniversary of the legendary Woodstock Festival. The event earned tons of media coverage and spawned a small cottage industry of nostalgic books. But musically, there was a lot more to 1969 than the artists that played on the farm in upstate New York that year.
’69 was also the year of Song of a Gypsy, a glorious, trippy and romantic piece of psychedelic musical history by Damon The Gypsy, a singer/songwriter who reflected the era of peace and love, not hate but Haight—as in Haight-Ashbury.
Forty years beyond its initial release on LP, and 20 years after it first sold thousands after it came out on CD, Damon is introducing Song of a Gypsy to a whole new generation with a new ‘VHD’ version re-mastered by John Vestman, a 30 year veteran engineer who has worked on projects by Sting, George Duke, Hole and Teena Marie, among others.
It’s a unique piece of history, not only because it so perfectly speaks to the “gypsy soul” in all of us but because it is all about truth, in an earthy way; simple yet professional and personal. It’s the ‘60s experience viewed through the kaleidoscope eyes of a true musical vet of the era—one who came upon his modal, sitar like acoustic guitar sound by chance one night in Big Sur, California jamming with none other than Ravi Shankar and George Harrison.
His music comes from that unique time and place but don’t start getting the idea that Damon was a hippie—he was and always has been a gypsy. There is a difference. He was in their world but not of it. He understood that love could not be understood. He saw free love as empty sex. Not love at all. Drugs? They took us from reality. The problem with drugs is the law of gravity. He saw it the way Blood, Sweat & Tears did: “What goes up, must come down” like a “Spinning Wheel.”
“Sure, I used drugs in the ‘60s, we all did,” he says. “But that didn’t make me one of them. They thought sex was love, but it’s not. The hippies protested the war, I didn’t. They spoke peace and love, and I didn’t. I lived it to the degree I could. However, I couldn’t turn the other cheek—but that’s another story. Love, sure, that’s what it’s all about. And yes, sex can be a big part of love, but sex ain’t love. The hippies spoke love and lived sex—sex, drugs and rock and roll. But this wasn’t me at all.”
Halfway between its initial 1969 pressing of 500 LPs and today, Song of a Gypsy experienced a fascinating renaissance via pure serendipity. Story has it that a Canadian disc jockey was combing through a stack of 45s at a swap meet and came upon a record that had the symbol of an Ankh, the Egyptian hieroglyphic that meant “eternal life.” He figured for 25 cents, how could he go wrong? Later that day, he listened to the record and was blown away. The straight forward simplicity of the lyrics, the mystical, hypnotic sound, with a Middle Eastern influence and rock & roll undergirding had an immediate effect on him. It’s probably the same magic that captured the execs at United Artists that were about to release the album on their label until they were fired (see, A&R was a tenuous job back then too!).
Soon the news spread and Damon the Gypsy became a bit of an underground legend. As awareness of his music began to snowball, Damon’s music rose from 25 cents per recording up to as high as $3,000 on eBay. Song of a Gypsy remains one of the most sought after vinyls of its time, with “The Goldmine Price Guide to Rare and Collectible Record Albums” listing it at over $3,000.
“It died and then like The Phoenix, it rose from its own ashes,” Damon says. “People started making pirated copies of it and eventually the demand was big enough so that I put it out the original version on CD. I think it has a haunting hypnotic flavor that just grabs people and they enjoy tripping and grooving to it. My words are very simple and tell a very direct story about a quest for love. People tend not just to hear the music but feel it. The unique mixture of my voice and Charlie Carey’s Santana-like electric guitar weaving in and out of my modal one tone acoustic guitar is very unique.
“Nobody is doing anything like that today,” he continues, “and it really is a part of its special time and place. On a more personal level, the music taps into my status as what my name spells backwards, which is “nomad.” My whole life has been a magic bandwagon and I think fans like the fact that it’s grounded in that Northern California sound but also has that Middle Eastern scale and percussion instruments like hand drums and finger cymbals.”
A little time travel is in order to fully understand how Damon first came upon the modal guitar sound that came to define the artistry he brought to Song of a Gypsy and its 1999 sequel Gypsy Eyes-another work that blended the joyful sounds of the psychedelic era with real life experience and wisdom. In 1967, Damon, a Los Angeles club singer and card carrying member of Local #47, was hanging out playing his guitar on the lawn of Esalen, a retreat for rich folks with hot springs that we might now know as a “spa”; the manager was an old high school friend who invited him up. On the day one of his strings broke, Ravi Shankar and George Harrison helicoptered in for the night.
“That evening, everyone was in the cafeteria jamming and banging on instruments like they always did and I started detuning my guitar with its five remaining strings. It started sounding like a sitar with a modal tone that droned and didn’t change keys, but embellished the middle of the key. It fit in perfectly when Ravi and George started playing. Inspired by the Biblical story of David who played a 10 stringed instrument, I later switched to a 12 string and took two off to achieve the same effect. The modal vibe stuck with me and became an intrinsic part of my sound.”
At its heart, Song of a Gypsy is about Damon’s search for love and an ongoing passion for a mysterious girl named Genie, as in “Poor Poor Genie,” the album’s second track. “It was my reaching out through music to let others know they’re not alone, and there are more of us out there with ‘gypsy souls’ and the same sensitivity in regards to love and its depth,” Damon says.
Song of a Gypsy’s titles all touch on different feelings about this Genie. He asks, “Don’t You Feel Me” and “Did You Ever” think that I would fall in love with you? Listening to the dirty, hard grooving, deep down “Funky Funky Blues” helps take his mind off his troubles, but later he wonders, “Do You” dream about love and happiness? On “The Night” he and Genie finally get together, he declares “I Feel Your Love” and his heart soars like an eagle on “Birds Fly So High.” On Song of a Gypsy’s final track, “The Road Of Life,” he looks back on this extraordinary romance and says, “As each day comes to pass and my body comes to rest, my heart, my mind, my soul goes on living for the best.”
Over the years, Damon has performed everywhere from his home base of Southern California to Amsterdam, Greece and Spain, where he played 14 cities in 16 days a few years ago. With the HD release of Song of a Gypsy, he is looking forward to hitting the road again. He is also currently working on a third album to complete the “gypsy” trilogy.
“The lot of the gypsy symbolizes each one of us as we wander the paths of our lives,” he says. “The album may even have some answers for those of you who are endowed with gypsy souls, seekers of love and truth. Listening to these melodies from beginning to end may just leave you in a place of new understanding of love and life itself. I’m excited to once again bring people along on my journey.”
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